Watering the plants

Although we live in a teeny tiny studio apartment, we do have the luxury of having a small balcony. I mean, it is pretty small, only really big enough for a couple of chairs, but we also have a row of window boxes out there. 

Unfortunately (gardening-wise) we moved to France mid-August, which isn't really the best time to be planting. We tried, but unsurprisingly, almost everything died!

Now that spring's popping up, the chives and, surprisingly, the lettuces(!) are starting to revive. The rosemary coped fine, but obviously stopped growing. We've also planted some acorns that we collected in the autumn and stored in the fridge over winter, in the hope that they will grow. 

However, our rosemary plant was getting very dry in it's spot, so we decided to move it to its own box in the hope that having more space would also encourage it to grow. So move it I did. 

The rosemary in its new spot

Our balcony is also south-facing which won't really help with the whole being dry thing. So, while I was on Pinterest this morning up popped a link to a tutorial for keeping your plants watered (find it here). I loved the idea, so wondered if I could do the same for our plants. What with our plant boxes being on the ledge of our balcony I didn't particularly want to use glass bottles (although we have several waiting to be recycled) so decided to make use of our plastic milk bottles.

What a beautiful milk bottle ;)

You can just about see the hole in the lid

I removed the label and cut off the bottom to allow me to be able to fill it while it's in the soil. Then I punched a hole in the lid to make the opening smaller.


With fingers crossed (not literally) I placed my bottle in the soil and filled it up with water. Much of it went straight through the bottle and came out the bottom of the plant box. Not what I wanted to happen. I took the bottle out, looked at the soil and decided I'd try again, maybe the soil was just too dry to start with. In went the bottle for a second time; I repositioned it slightly. This time, the water didn't drain straight through so I've left it out there. Hopefully this'll help the rosemary be happier, and if it works I'll think about putting some more in the other boxes. Watch this space. 

The bottle in situ